1<U Canadian Record of Science. 



.feature and gives it its specific name. Its gills are 

 white or grayish white, with a tinge of pink, but be- 

 come black with age, when the whole plant melts 

 away into an inky juice. Before this last stage is 

 .reached it makes a very delicious dish. 



In October Coprinus comatus and Coprinus 

 atramentarius grow in large quantities near Montreal. 

 These are both black-spored agarics which melt away 

 into an inky juice, which is sometimes used as ink. 



Coprinus comatus, sometimes called the shaggy 

 maned mushroom, is from three to seven inches high, 

 oblong, becoming bell-shaped. "When the deliquescing 

 stage is reached, the cuticle of the cap splits into 

 brownish scales which curl up, and as it hangs on its 

 slender stem it resembles a barber's wig, which 

 accounts for its specific name. Its gills are free from 

 the stem, crowded, white with a pinkish tinge becom- 

 ing black with age, when with the whole cap they melt 

 away. It has a ring or annulus, but this frequently 

 drops off as the plant develops. 



I have a _ drawing of one, part of which was done 

 with the juice of the original, the inky drops repre- 

 sented as falling from the cap are the actual spores. 

 This juice works very much like sepia. 



Both this and atramentarius are edible if used be- 

 fore the gills turn black. I have found the latter 

 plant as early as July in St. Andrews, ISTew Brunswick, 

 where this year a few of the plants came up on the 

 opposite side of a well beaten road, from where they 

 : grew last year. It is very like the comatus, except 

 that the cap is more bulbous, and smooth or striate 

 and gray in color. 



One often sees growing on the trunks of trees a 

 gilled mushroom in groups or singly; it if ■■* Pleuiotus 

 but I have never been able to decide whether it is 

 Heurotus ostreatus, ulmarius or sapidus, as I have 

 never found it in a condition to drop its spores, the 

 color of which is a distinguishing feature. 



In Polyp oracese the hymenium consists of tubes, 

 on the interior of which the spores are formed and 

 •escape through their mouths. 



